Corporate Integrity Project

NLPC seeks to promote integrity in corporate governance, including honesty and fair play in relationships with shareholders, employees, business partners and customers. In doing so, NLPC places special emphasis on:

* Asserting that the social responsibility of the corporation is to defend and advance the interests of the people who own the company, the shareholders. True responsibility is fidelity to one’s own mission, not someone else’s, or someone else’s political agenda.

* Exposing the seeking of influence on public officials by corporations, which is the inevitable result of high levels of government spending and intervention in the marketplace.

* Combating practices that undermine the free enterprise system, including philanthropic giving to groups hostile to a free economy.

Pennsylvania Congressman, Mike Kelly, wants to end the $7,500 tax credit that affluent purchasers of electric vehicles are currently taking advantage of. The most hyped of these vehicles has been General Motors’ Chevy Volt, but other plug-in cars, like Fiskers and Teslas, sell for close to $100,000 and make a strong case for Rep. Kelly’s argument.

Let’s look past the recent Chevy Volt fires. The value of a vehicle will be determined by the consumer. It does not matter if Jay Leno and other rich purchasers say they love their Volts. The real questions are, should taxpayers be paying the wealthy to purchase cars like the Volt, and what, exactly, are the taxpayers getting for their money?

The unit just closed its only U.S. manufacturing facility, in Frederick, Md., last year. The company said it would outsource its production of solar photovoltaic panels to China and India. BP CEO Tony Hayward told the Washington Post at the time it was “moving to where we can manufacture cheaply.” BP auctioned equipment in January this year from the closed plant, and in a sign the overall industry – with bankrupt Solyndra as its face – is completely tanking, an experienced industrial auctioneer told the Frederick News-Post, “We’ve been doing more solar technology auctions lately.”

So much for the excuse that U.S. solar companies “can’t compete” because of the cheap, heavily subsidized production of panels in … Read More ➡

NLPC Associate Fellow Paul Chesser was interviewed last night on Cavuto on the Fox Business Network. Paul asserted that electric vehicles like the Chevy Volt have failed in the marketplace, despite massive taxpayer subsidies. Here’s a transcript:

Neil Cavuto: Well as you can tell, I have been somewhat subdued in my criticism of electric cars, especially the Volt. But despite my downplaying Americans seem to be plugged in to the fact that plug ins are not in. I want you to check out this USA Today headline, that’s right, copying me, questioning if electric cars are losing their spark. Of course it is a misleading headline since they never had a spark. But I digress because you have lost me and USA Today, well I think that it is fair to say you lost the … Read More ➡

Anybody using the financial services industry puts their faith and trust in a whole lot of people they have never seen or ever will. We all rely on regulators and regulations that are instituted by state and federal governments. In fact, almost anybody who has any savings probably has them parked in one of our financial institutions. To sharpen your focus on this, remember that about 80% of the balance of your checking account is tied up in loans that some strangers have promised to repay.

…2005 saw Man Financial make its largest deal with the transformative $323 million acquisition of client assets and accounts from entities of Refco, following the U.S. financial-services group’s collapse in late 2005. The Refco deal…boosted Man Financial’s scale in retail and institutional business.

Neil Cavuto: Ten thousand Volts. That was the sales jolt that GM was hoping for this year. But with less than two weeks to go, lets just say that this puppy may be about to short circuit big time. Volt watcher Mark Modica says the numbers may be even worse than they appear. They are going to be well shy of that right, Mark?

Mark Modica (National Legal and Policy Center): Correct.

Neil Cavuto: What is the real story?

Mark Modica: Well, not only are they not hitting the goal, but it seems like a lot of these purchases, once again are being purchased by taxpayers, who through federal funds are giving … Read More ➡

Greenpeace, which has campaigned against technology companies for nearly two years over their coal-burning electricity use at “cloud computing” data centers, has convinced one – Facebook – to promise to use renewable energy at facilities they build in the future.

The international environmental pressure group’s members have singled out the popular social networking site in a drive to “Unfriend Coal,” in order to fight the global warming problem that is still vivid in their collective imagination. They are particularly incensed that Facebook has built data centers in Oregon (Pacific Power) and North Carolina (Duke Energy) that are customers of utilities that generate a large percentage of their electricity from coal. Greenpeace initiated its campaign using the site’s own online tools against it, by starting groups in English and Spanish that gather members who wanted “Facebook to run on 100 percent renewable energy.” The group also attempted to … Read More ➡

It’s a story of two Davids against a Goliath, and no, it’s not the utilities against the big bad government regulator. Rather, two small eastern North Carolina cities – Rocky (“Gonna Fly Now”) Mount and New Bern – convinced FERC that the merger plan would harm their ability to purchase electricity in a competitive environment. Both municipalities deliver power to their residents through a cooperative of cities and towns in eastern North Carolina, but dissented from their fellow members’ approval of the merger. Coastal New Bern has been led by Mayor Lee Bettis Jr., a former New York Mafiosi defense lawyer, who has vowed to “go it alone the … Read More ➡

Sales for the Chevy Volt have been stagnant and it has become apparent that lack of supply is not the reason. GM CEO Dan Akerson is responsible for tying the success of GM into the success of the Volt by having made lofty claims that the vehicle was, in fact, the future of the company while investing a major portion of marketing dollars to help support the perception. Deception was evident as statements were made that the vehicle was “virtually” sold out and supply couldn’t keep up with demand, while evidence surfaced that this was not the case. GM cancelled plans to run a second shift for the vehicle even as it continued the ruse and floated rumors that there were huge waiting lists of purchasers for the vehicle.

The latest nail in the coffin for the Volt is the discovery that the lithium-ion batteries that power the vehicles … Read More ➡

The former head of the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission, who was fired in October 2010 by Gov. Mitch Daniels for improper contact with top officials at troubled Duke Energy, has been indicted.

The Indianapolis Star reported that David Hardy was charged on Monday by a grand jury with failure to disclose secret meetings with Duke executives, and for his aid to IURC’s top lawyer in his effort to get a job with Duke. The newspaper, after it obtained emails via open records request, had revealed over several months “that Hardy had been chummy with industry executives and autocratic with his staff. That raised questions about whether Hardy had compromised the agency’s mission of balancing the needs of utilities and ratepayers.”

Indiana laws forbid private communications about active cases between regulators and company representatives. In one February 2010 meeting Hardy met with Duke Energy CEO James Rogers and two other … Read More ➡

Bloomberg reported last week that General Motors will be paying $12 million in additional bonuses to its UAW workers for meeting “quality targets.” It’s nice to see the holiday spirit of giving at GM. Unfortunately; US taxpayers are not faring as well as Government Motors’ politically favored union members.

The Obama Administration still refuses to exit its stake in GM with Treasury serving as Money Manager for the American taxpayers. Geithner and friends continue to gamble on a market-timing strategy to “maximize” taxpayers return on its GM bailout (sorry, “investment.”) So, how are they doing?